The BU Terriers finished off the regular season in style with a sweep over the last place Northeastern Huskies. The Terriers took home a 4-2 win Friday night at Matthews Arena and followed that effort with a convincing 5-0 victory on Saturday night at Senior night at Agganis Arena. The two wins give the Terriers a 18-15-2 record to finish the regular season and earned them the third seed Hockey East for the fourth straight year. They will host the Merrimack Warriors in the Quarter Finals of the Hockey East Tournament next Friday-Sunday. The Terriers have more work to do to earn an at-large berth to NCAA tournament and need to focus on the QF series first.
Friday night, the Terriers got scoring from all 4 lines including senior Jake Moscatel's first D-1 collegiate goal. Moscatel joined the team halfway through last year due to some departures and has worked his way up the depth chart ever since. The reaction was great from the team, who were all happy for Moscatel and the great story he has. Coach Parker announced that they are trying to gain him another year of eligibility for next year because they have been so impressed with his play this season. The Terriers added another goal on a wrister from captain Wade Megan. Despite giving up a goal late in the first, the Terriers settled in defensively and held Northeastern until they could add two more goals from Danny O'Regan and Matt Lane early in the third. They held on for a 4-2 win. What made the win even more impressive was that they did it with 5 dmen due to Garrett Noonan going out with a separated shoulder that will likely end his year. It was a big two points for this team and key to play well in front of goalie Sean Maguire who is the goalie for the rest of the season after Matt O'Connor went down with a collapsed lung suffered last weekend.
Saturday night was crucial as the Terriers celebrated their senior night by dominating play once again. They ended up winning by a score of 5-0 but it took some work to get there. Danny O'Regan scored a powerplay goal early in the first and the score stayed that way until O'Regan found Evan Rodrigues wide open in the slot. Rodrigues sniped it home past NU senior sieve Chris Rawlings. Matt Nieto threw on his 16th goal of the season and 7th in the last five games to make it 3-0 and seal it for the Terriers. Sahir Gill added two goals of his own. One on a great hustle play to beat Rawling five hole and another on a tip that effectively took away Matt Ronan's first collegiate goal. Gill and coach Parker laughed about it afterwards going as far as to say Gill shouldn't have touched the puck.
The win had a few implications as it clinched the Terriers the 3 seed in the HE QF's that begin Friday at 7:30 at Agganis Arena. It also marked the end of Northeastern captain and former Terrier Vinny Saponari. Saponari ended his career with 99 career points and nearly had 100 in the last seconds of Saturday night's game. Saponari made a nice pass only to have the shot hit the cross bar as time expired. Saponari was in visible pain as the teams shook hands. Him and Coach Parker have not been on best terms since his dismissal and have not shaken hands since then. Overall ,it was a successful weekend for the Terriers as they continue their push for the NCAA tournament. There will be big news coming tomorrow regarding Jack Parker's future as coach. We will have all the information on that as it comes out. Below are the highlights and some beauty interviews from the weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment